A court in Pakistan has sentenced three militants to prison after convicting them on charges of financing terrorism.

The Afghan Taliban is unlikely to call a ceasefire any time soon, the group’s leader has indicated, even though the “doors of dialogue” with the United States to end the 18-year-long war in the country remain open.

The US envoy negotiating with the Taliban will hold new talks this month with the group in Qatar, the US State Department has said, as momentum builds for a deal to end America’s longest war.

On May 19, 2019, a prison riot in Vakhdat, Tajikistan, left 29 people dead, including supporters of the so-called Islamic State. Allegedly orchestrated by militants, government information about the riot is limited and leaves many questions unanswered. Tajikistan has seen an uptick in jihadist-inspired violence over the last few years, signaling a worrisome trend for future instability in the country. […]

A suicide bomber dispatched by the Islamic State’s Khorasan province struck outside the Marshal Fahim National Defense University in Kabul earlier today. It is the second time that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s loyalists have targeted the academy, which hosts training for Afghan Army recruits.

Herat, Afghanistan: Taliban fighters have stormed several security posts providing protection to Afghanistan’s historic minaret of Jam, cutting access to the UNESCO World Heritage Site and killing 18 security forces, officials said Wednesday.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was sworn in for a second term on Thursday during a glittering ceremony at the presidential palace in New Delhi, after a landslide election victory that sealed his position as the country’s most powerful leader in decades.

The Taliban say “decent progress” has been made in talks with senior Afghan politicians in Moscow but that there has been no breakthrough towards ending two decades of the US occupation of Afghanistan.

Hosting Taliban delegates and Afghan politicians in an effort to promote itself as a peacemaker in Afghanistan, Russia has called for the complete withdrawal of international forces from the war-ravaged country.

The Taliban and Russia have jointly called for the withdrawal of U.S.-led coalition troops from Afghanistan, with a top leader of the Islamist insurgent group denouncing the foreign presence in the country as a major obstacle to Afghan peace.